Learning About Contractions Through Free English Online Courses

Contractions are words in the English language that combine two words in one and replace the missing letters with a punctuation mark called an apostrophe. This is one of the lessons you will learn when you take a free English online course.

The instruction is provided in simple terms through dialogues that have at least one contraction in each one. For example, let is a very common contraction in the English language that is composed of two words ?let and us. The ?is omitted and replaced by an apostrophe? to make the shortened form of the word. It is used in both casual and formal conversation.

The verb o be?is one that is commonly used in English. Some of the commonly used contractions are:

* They are ?

* We are ?

* I am ?

* You are ?

* He is ?

* She is ?

Along with learning the contractions, you also learn the proper verb and subject agreement. You never say you is or I are in English. There are negative contractions as well that are covered in other lessons, once you grasp the concept of using contractions. Instead of saying do not, you would say don and instead of saying cannot, you would say can. At the same time it is perfectly acceptable to use the words instead of the contractions, but native English speakers use contractions in their speech and writing on a regular basis.

You can read the conversations and listen to them at the same time. This will give you practice in three important elements of learning English ?listening, reading and speaking. You can use the short dialogues as speaking practice when you read along with the speaker. You can replay them as often as you wish and record yourself reading them to get an idea of how well you can pronounce the words.

Once you master the dialogue section of the lesson, you can advance to the grammar instruction. Here you will find a table of commonly used contractions using singular and plural pronouns in both negative and positive examples. Again you can review this instruction as often as you wish and when you feel comfortable with it, then you can move on to the practice exercises. These exercises are based on the contractions covered in the dialogues and the instruction. You will have to type in the contraction for the words in the parenthesis following the sentence. This is the way English speaking children learn the proper form of the structure in class and the same way you would learn it if you attended classes.

When you complete each exercise, you will receive immediate feedback in the form of a grade and a listing of the correct answers. This feature allows you to review your answers to determine where you made a mistake ?if you had any incorrect answers.

You should not get disheartened when you make mistakes because this is an important feature of learning. Learn from your mistakes and don move on to the test on the structure until you have mastered all the grammar exercises.